All of Time and Space
by Xzeihoranth
Summary: Part 2 of A Thousand Worlds. In which our heroine does battle with the legendary Pokemon of the Creation Trio...
1. Chapter 1

A torrent of snow blustered past the man and the younger woman who huddled together on the mountainside. They were hardly dressed for the occasion; she wore a beautiful low-cut blue dress, and his sleeves were still rolled up to his elbows. He made no attempt to change it; instead, his attention was focused on the young woman pressed against him, holding her hands to his not merely in an attempt to share body heat, but to try and warm herself with the ball of fire he was gingerly holding in his palms.

"Keep your eyes open." he told her. "If you fall asleep, you might not wake back up again." She nodded vigorously, her teeth already beginning to chatter. He gritted his own teeth and forced more energy into the fireball, making it blaze brighter.

"I dddon't think we're going to find any sssalts here, Bbbooker..." she chastised him.

"To hell with salts. Soon as we get you warmed up, we'll go someplace that does. We didn't fight our way through that nightmare just to wind up a couple ornamental ice blocks."

They turned their heads as the crunch of feet on snow reached their ears. A tall slender woman, wearing a dress that was almost painfully black against the grey sky and swirling snow, and the second set of long blonde hair they'd seen that day that reached below the waist (although hers was not nearly as spiky as his had been), rounded the corner. Her eyes widened when she spotted them. "Oh! Are you two all right?" she asked as she hurried over to them.

"Couldn't be bbbetter." the young woman said sarcastically. "I just left my only pppair of long-jjjohns in the tower."

"Why in the world didn't you dress more sensibly?" the other woman asked. "Never mind. There will be time for explanations once we get you warmed up." She reached into her bag and pulled out a fist-sized red and white ball which she then tossed to the ground. It flew open and a white light poured forth, quickly resolving into a small vaguely feline creature with an orange coat and a yellow mane and tail. It chirped loudly and looked up at the woman who'd released it. "Flareon, I need you to warm her up for me." It chirped again and began climbing up onto the girl's dress. "Don't make yourself too hot! Think of it as an Ember, not a Flamethrower." The creature nodded as if it understood her. It pawed at the girl's face and she lowered her hands from her companions' as she looked at it curiously. The creature nestled against her chest and seemed almost to glow as it did so. The girl's expression changed to one of wonder and she held the creature closer. "Wwwow! Can I pet him?" she asked eagerly.

The woman nodded. "Flareons can be very affectionate sometimes, although they'd much prefer to battle. I'm taking care of this one for a friend of mine. He's raising another Pokemon right now."

The man stood up, brushing snow from his pants while still holding the fireball carefully. "Just slow down there a second. What the hell's a Flareon? And what's a Pokemon for that matter?"

The woman started. "You mean you... you climbed all this way without Pokemon?"

"Well we didn't climb so much as...fall." the girl explained as she scratched the creature between the ears.

"And it wasn't falling as much as we were pushed." the man grumbled. "Look lady, I don't mean to be rude, but where the hell are we?"

"You're in the Sinnoh region. But if you want me to be more specific... Would you like to come inside? It won't be much warmer in the caves, but you won't get soaked through from the snow." the woman suggested. Both parties heartily agreed to this, and so they followed her along the cliff into an opening in the rock-face.


	2. Chapter 2

"My name is Cynthia," the woman began. "The creatures you see around us..." She referred to small blue bats that flitted about the inside of the mountain. "...are called Zubats. They are one of almost 500 known species of Pokemon."

"Five HUNDRED?" the man exclaimed as the young woman looked up from her adoration of the creature cradled in her arms. "The books I read when I was little said there were far more than five hundred different kinds of INSECTS. I guess this isn't one of our worlds." she commented.

"Hmph. Think I'd remember the good people of Columbia siccing their dogs on us instead of tryin' to blow my brains out." the man agreed. The woman looked at them strangely, but said nothing. "Okay, guess it's time to even up. Name's Booker DeWitt, and this is my...daughter Elizabeth."

"Don't worry about him; he's a bit slow on the uptake." Elizabeth interjected with a smile. He sighed in mock-exasperation and continued. "She and I just spent the better part of two days (least I think it's two days; try as I might to sort it out my head just keeps on spinnin') runnin' from cops, soldiers, Patriots, the Vox..."

"What he's trying to say is that we're here on vacation. He said he was going to take me to all sorts of new places, and while this wouldn't have been my FIRST choice..." She gave him another smile. "I've never gone spelunking before, so that's one promise he's kept."

"You know you could stand to be a little more grateful. I lost count of how many bullets I've taken for you." Booker grumbled with an exaggerated wink at Cynthia.

"I've got a list if you want it!" Elizabeth said teasingly. She took her hand from the Flareon, which let out a disgruntled mutter, and reached for Booker's pocket. "Why the hell'd you keep it in there?" he asked as she withdrew a crumpled scrap of paper.

"Does it look like I have pockets in this thing?" she asked, doing a slow dramatic turn for his inspection. He rolled his eyes, and she began struggling to unfold the paper with just one hand. As she managed to do so, a tentacle flew out of seemingly nowhere and knocked it from her grasp. She yelped and tried her best to catch it as it fluttered away, all the while still trying to hold onto the Flareon. "Huh. Can't imagine how that happened." Booker said, hiding his sucker-covered hand behind his back. Cynthia chuckled. His daughter stuck her tongue out at him as she hurried to catch up. "It doesn't matter," she confided to the older woman. "I remembered all the good ones. Numberrr...73: shot himself in the foot while trying to reload a pistol..."

"In my defense, one of the crow bastards did just try to take my head off." he said grumpily.

The banter was interrupted when Booker, busy gazing at his daughter, missed his footing and found himself teetering on the edge of a hundred foot drop! His brief yell of panic was interrupted by Elizabeth grabbing him by the back of his shirt and pulling him away from the cliff; unfortunately, she misjudged her own strength and sent him sprawling to the floor. Cynthia rushed over. "Goodness! What happened?" she asked.

"I'll be fine," he mumbled as he stumbled to his feet. "Just got a little careless is all." His daughter glared at him, her face almost exactly mirrored by the Flareon nestled against her chest, which seemed upset its grooming had been interrupted. "Booker..." she said ominously.

"I know, I know. It was an accident, promise." he assured her. Elizabeth still looked suspicious, no doubt remembering the last time he'd fallen off a cliff, and a fragment of song darted into Booker's head almost unbidden. _"If you should ever leave me..."_ he began. Her face lit up and she replied in kind: _"Though life would still go on, believe me." _

As the trio made their way back up the ledge and out onto the windswept mountain once more, DeWitt and his daughter continued to sing, first alternating and then uniting on the chorus. _"The world could show nothing to me..."_

"_So what good would living do me?"_

"_God only knows what I'd be without you, without you..." _


	3. Chapter 3

Cynthia, Booker and Elizabeth stood at the entrance of what Cynthia had described, at Elizabeth's behest, as the Spear Pillar, the place where the Sinnoh region had been created by two Pokemon known as Dialga (whose beating heart was the flow of time itself) and Palkia (who, it was said, controlled the very fabric of space). "It must have been beautiful when it was young." Elizabeth said as she wandered around the stone pillars, now crumbled and worn away by the relentless march of seasons.

"What exactly did you come here for, miss?" Booker asked. Cynthia was looking around curiously. "People from as far away as Celestic Town have been talking about the lights atop Mount Coronet. The colors they described were blue and pink; the same as the ancient Pokemon. I thought... wait, do you hear that?"

Booker cocked his head to the side. "Well now that you mention it..." The noise was unlike anything any of them had heard before: a strange multi-tonal beeping that seemed to come from everywhere around them. Elizabeth looked up from her examination of one of the more intact pillars, a strange expression on her face. Just as Booker was about to ask what she saw, there came a sound like thunder and a huge glimmering pink diamond appeared in the air at the center of the structure. A split second later, a flurry of other sounds all blended together heralded the arrival of another hole in midair, this one a dazzling blue, very reminiscent of Elizabeth's dress.

The diamonds twisted and writhed (there was no other word for it) before disgorging two massive creatures. One was blue, with what seemed to be silver armor upon its feet, chest, head and tail. The other was pink, stood on two feet to the other's four, and was shorter and sleeker than its counterpart, with long fins behind its shoulders that might serve as wings and a more pronounced tail, which swished behind it. The two monsters howled at each other angrily, and Booker collapsed to his hands and knees, every fiber of his body aching with the power they radiated.

He forced himself to look up and through the strange haze between the two colossal beasts, he saw Elizabeth walking slowly towards them. "Elizabeth! Get back!" he yelled, struggling to be heard over the noises the two titans were making. She gave no indication that she'd heard, but somehow her voice carried clearly back to Cynthia and her father. "I was wrong. The Saiyans didn't bring us here; they did. They knew I was coming. They know what I can do, and they don't like it."

"What are you talking about?" Cynthia shouted.

"The universe never liked me, Booker. It wanted Anna, the girl I was supposed to be. Every tear I open, that's its way of saying 'You don't belong here. Go home.'" Elizabeth kept walking, and the blue creature suddenly noticed her. The fins along its back raised, like a dog tensing before a fight. "But I don't have a home." she murmured. "Not anymore. Not since they..." She paused, and the pink creature turned to look down at her as she drew level with it. "Dialga and Palkia. Always fighting over which one father liked best. Over which of you people need more." The beasts were facing her now, heads lowered in a challenge. "But why drag me into this? Do you expect me to pick favorites?" Their eyes glowed a bright orange, and their bodies pulsated with their respective colors.

"Oh. You just want to kill me." she said calmly. Booker pushed himself to his feet and started to run. Dialga growled and a bolt of blue light lanced out, straight for him. "Leave my father out of this!" Elizabeth yelled, reaching out a hand. The beam shattered, although a handful of fragments hit their mark. He stopped mid-dash, frozen in time. Cynthia gasped in horror. Elizabeth turned back to face the monsters before her; the look of rage on her face would have made any lesser being run.

"If you hurt a single hair on his head..." she began. Palkia screeched and made a slashing motion with its arm. A pink crescent-shaped blade of energy shot forth at Elizabeth, who only just managed to put her hands up to block it. There was a flash of light and a terrific crash. When the glare faded, Elizabeth was struggling with all of her might against the attack, but was slowly losing ground...


	4. Chapter 4

Booker returned to normal (or as normal as someone with his Vigor-modified physique could be) just as Palkia let out a roar of victory. His body and mind still trying to comprehend what had just happened, he barely heard Elizabeth whisper, "It's not over yet." With a final push, she shoved the attack back at the dragons. It exploded with an almost obscenely loud BANG, creating a large crater where the raised pedestal bearing an image of a mountain had once been, but the monsters appeared unscathed, howling their fury at the girl who dared to defy them. He limped to his daughter's side as she panted for breath. "Booker, are you all right?" she asked wearily.

"I been better. Any chance you could open up a tear and..."

"They'd just pull us right back."

"Yeah. Shoulda seen that comin'. What the hell's the matter with 'em anyway?"

"They've always been jealous of each other, but now that a mere human can do what they can, they've managed to find something they can agree on."

"Which is ripping you into a million million pieces, one for every star in the sky."

Elizabeth sighed. "That's about the gist of it."

Booker straightened with a wince. "Well then, Miss Elizabeth. It's been a pleasure to know you." He offered his arm in mock-gallantry. "The pleasure's all mine, Mr DeWitt." she said as she linked her arm with his. Just then, a shrill cry echoed over the mountaintop. "What is it now?" Booker grumbled. A small pink shape shot into view, soaring high into the sky before coming to a halt in the air before him. It was barely a foot high, with two long grey tails and wide solemn eyes which were currently fixated on Booker's face. He had a sudden desire to poke it on the nose, but some part of his brain warned him that might not be wise. It repeated the sound he'd heard just a moment before, then floated away to wait in front of Dialga and Palkia, both of whom seemed to recognize it.

Booker heard Elizabeth giggle, and turned to see another fairy-like creature, blue instead of pink, sitting atop her head with its own two tails hanging over Elizabeth's eyes. She giggled again and brushed one of them aside, trying to get a glimpse of the creature, but it flew away to join the pink one and a third, which had just arrived on the scene with its eyes resolutely closed.

The trio seemed to be exerting some sort of power over the giants before them; although they remained motionless, the air grew even more tense and one of the behemoths appeared to have grown tired. The other one, the quadruped, continued to bellow at the new arrivals. Cynthia shouted from the entrance: "Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf... It's said they gave birth to the human spirit. But it doesn't look like they're strong enough to calm both Dialga and Palkia at the same time!"

"So what do we do, throw one of your balls at the big one? If it's good enough for one dragon, might be good enough for another!" Booker yelled back. (Cynthia had shown them her favorite Pokemon, which she had referred to as a Garchomp, while moving boulders in the mountain.)

"I don't think a ball that size would be enough to hold it!" Elizabeth shouted. "It might do more harm than good!"

"Then what are we..." Booker stopped suddenly. "What's wrong with the shadows?"

Elizabeth followed his outstretched finger with her eyes, and saw the shadows on the stone floor dancing ominously. They stretched forward to join the others, and before the onlookers knew what was going on, they'd formed a huge dark pool at Elizabeth's feet. As she tried to back away, a pair of huge, piercing red eyes appeared in the depths. "Who...are yououououououououououououou..." Her voice hitched horribly and she began to fade from view. "Oh no. Not this time." Booker growled. He lunged at his daughter, passed right through her and disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

Some time later, Cynthia watched in awe as Dialga and Palkia returned to their own dimensions as quickly as they'd come. The trio, which legends said resided deep inside each of the famous lakes of the Sinnoh region, departed as well; though the yellow Uxie paused for a moment above her. She remained troubled by the events of that day for many years to come, until a mysterious letter arrived, signed only with the letter L...


	5. Chapter 5

The place Booker DeWitt found himself in when he regained consciousness was, he supposed, similar in nature to the strange dreamlike version of his office he had frequented during his visit to Columbia, albeit even more bizarre. It consisted of nothing but chunks of land floating in a sea of empty blue space. On one platform in the distance, he saw a forest of strange trees that seemed to disappear and reappear depending on his proximity to them. On another, he found his vision somehow inverted, and took some time adjusting to his new look on life for fear of falling into the swirling vortex he could now see below...no, above him. Next he came across a waterfall that flowed upwards and the only way to proceed was to swim up it to safety. He very nearly threw up when his sight suddenly returned to normal.

Then there was the giant winged creature that occasionally attempted to dislodge him from whatever platform he happened to be on at the time. At first he thought it was Songbird, risen from the depths of the ocean to try and kill him again. But the next glance he caught of it dispelled that fear. It was vaguely serpentine in shape, with numerous spikes along its sides and a cruel-looking face that seemed to split apart when it screamed at him.

After numerous trials and narrow escapes, he finally seemed to have lost the monster, but seemed to have reached the end of the road. Darkness billowed in front of him like a cloud, and the narrow strip of land might end just beyond where he now stood. Slowly, ever so slowly, he inched his way forward. The oppressive and horribly alien atmosphere rendered him nearly incapable of careful planning, which was the only thing that had saved him from going insane back in Comstock House. There was scarcely a rational thought in his head, only the constant urge to move forward.

His heart nearly leaped out of his throat when he bumped into someone. The figure stood close to the edge of the island, and when it turned to face him, he felt as if he'd succeeded in something; although he could not name the person that now looked at him, he knew that she was the most important thing in his life.

Her voice was soft and soothing. "The silence... It hurts, doesn't it?"

He nodded.

"It was only trying to save its home. When the others tried to kill me, they nearly destroyed both worlds with their power. They were almost feral. Just like you..."

He was silent.

"Come on, Booker." He had a name? "It's time to go." She took a step forward and was about to fall into the abyss when he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

His first words were hoarse and painful. "No. Together." She nodded and he took his place beside her on the precipice. She put a hand to his face, smiled...

And they fell.


End file.
